37Jetson
You are talking about products and the problem people are talking about are fees.

NOW FOR EVERYONE ELSE

STOP complaining about having to pay more for singles. Think of it like this

I avg 100 cards a day and make $200 a day on COMC or $6000 a month
Cash out fee is 1200, I am fine with that ( Little high but I build my business model around this)
$4800 Profit
I paid on avg $.25 for each of the 3000 cards to be sent to the site
$750
Now We were paying $.15 then it went to $.20 (Unplanned increase)
Now I am down to $4050 profit

I now have to pay $30 for my beckett subscription
I pay an additional $50 for cards priced under $2.50
I pay another $150 in storage fees for cards priced over $2.50

SO COMC gets $2,180 a month from me per month

Thanks you all pay for it.

I don't run promotions any more, I don't allow 50% offer like I use to
I sell much higher than I use to because I have to, and there for you buyers are going to get less deals

If COMC raises the prices again I am going to continue to do business with them because I
don't have to worry about customer service and scams like I did in the past.

BUT THE BUYER WILL EAT THE FEES BY INCREASED CARD PRICES

I learned this in economics my freshman year of college.

All of this makes sense on your end but what COMC has to realize is that it is unsustainable. At some point and that point is getting close, people will just buy from Ebay or Sportlots and COMC goes away. If you screw with the sellers enough they go away and then the buyers have nothing to buy. If you raise fees enough to where sellers have to pass it on to buyers via higher prices the buyers go away and the sellers soon follow. It is a lose lose.

I think;

Submission fees need to go back to .20.

Storage fees need to be adjusted or eliminated some how.

There needs to be an incentive program for high volume sellers/submitters. Every major company does something like this yet COMC doesn't.

Cashout fees need to be reexamined. Essentially they have a triple taxation system going on. You add that to only getting 10-40% of BV on most items and you have an unsustainable system.

Shipping. Not really sure how to tweak this but they have to be making a killing. Take my upcoming shipment for example. I will be taking possesion of 100 cards, none slabbed. I have already paid $25 in shipping on those and will pay an additional $3 when they ship. It won't cost them more than $5 to ship to me which is a $23 profit for them. When you account for the submission fees they already made on those cards, possible storage fees and cashout fees from the sellers it would seem to me that COMC is doing ok. I just think they are getting too greedy.

Forced returns need to go away. They promised that we would have some type of tab on the dashboard to keep track of these but I have yet to find anything like that. Please let me know if I am just missing it.

__________________
I think the great philosopher, Ron White, said it best, "I had the right to remain silent but I did not have the ability".

I do agree they have to be making a good amount on shipping and I actually think that it is a pretty good deal the way they make it on the shipping for them. I think though with that they can afford to lower their prices on submissions.

I do warn people though as sellers, if prices become cheaper on submitting items than more people will submit and than supply will go up and unless the demand increases as well from Marketing to outsiders or however than the only solution will be to lower the price cards so the overall profit won't change much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmscoggin

All of this makes sense on your end but what COMC has to realize is that it is unsustainable. At some point and that point is getting close, people will just buy from Ebay or Sportlots and COMC goes away. If you screw with the sellers enough they go away and then the buyers have nothing to buy. If you raise fees enough to where sellers have to pass it on to buyers via higher prices the buyers go away and the sellers soon follow. It is a lose lose.

I think;

Submission fees need to go back to .20.

Storage fees need to be adjusted or eliminated some how.

There needs to be an incentive program for high volume sellers/submitters. Every major company does something like this yet COMC doesn't.

Cashout fees need to be reexamined. Essentially they have a triple taxation system going on. You add that to only getting 10-40% of BV on most items and you have an unsustainable system.

Shipping. Not really sure how to tweak this but they have to be making a killing. Take my upcoming shipment for example. I will be taking possesion of 100 cards, none slabbed. I have already paid $25 in shipping on those and will pay an additional $3 when they ship. It won't cost them more than $5 to ship to me which is a $23 profit for them. When you account for the submission fees they already made on those cards, possible storage fees and cashout fees from the sellers it would seem to me that COMC is doing ok. I just think they are getting too greedy.

Forced returns need to go away. They promised that we would have some type of tab on the dashboard to keep track of these but I have yet to find anything like that. Please let me know if I am just missing it.

Changing from .25 to .20 on submission fees would make a $50 difference over the course of 1,000 cards. Is it really that close for some of you?

You say they are making a killing on shipping - they are paying an employee an hourly wage and benefits to pick the cards, securely package them, and make sure it is ready to go. How much do you think that runs them?

Changing from .25 to .20 on submission fees would make a $50 difference over the course of 1,000 cards. Is it really that close for some of you?

You say they are making a killing on shipping - they are paying an employee an hourly wage and benefits to pick the cards, securely package them, and make sure it is ready to go. How much do you think that runs them?

I agree but I think it would be wise and a nice gesture to reward people who send in larger batches. For example do .25 per card up to 300 ($75) cards and than do like $10 for every 100 above that or something like that. Because COMC is making the money up on shipping if more cards on on the site, leading to more cards being sold.

All I hear is how rich COMC is getting from shipping and I scratch my head. They have paid employees that have to maneuver through millions, yes millions, of cards to find your exact card and folks are complaining like it is the end of the world that they have to pay $.25 per card for this service. Some days I just do not understand people.

__________________Concentrating on my personal collection. Please drop me a PM if you have any of the following for sale: Topps Football 1959; 1961-1964, 1967; Philadelphia Football 1964-1967, Topps Baseball 1957-1968

I wish they would do more to help the buyers. If its something like waveing the $3 if you ship X amount or free shipping for first time buyers. Something to get buyers buying. The reason I believe they need to go this route is there is no shortage of sellers but if we get new buyers or buyers buying more we'll get more sellers sending in more items creating a fresh market. COMC has been stagnant, from my guess around the Spring Cleaning Sale, I know thats when I slowed up my buying.

Changing from .25 to .20 on submission fees would make a $50 difference over the course of 1,000 cards. Is it really that close for some of you?

You say they are making a killing on shipping - they are paying an employee an hourly wage and benefits to pick the cards, securely package them, and make sure it is ready to go. How much do you think that runs them?

I have submitted 29,000+ cards. That is $1,450. Yes, I can feel that number. Especially when I also get hit with $30 - 40 of storage fees per month and then there will be the 20% cash out fee at the end. None of this is taking into account my shipping costs to get it to them or my aquisition costs of the items in the first place. The last two are obviously not their concern or problem but all of these things need to be considered as a seller.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 37Jetson

All I hear is how rich COMC is getting from shipping and I scratch my head. They have paid employees that have to maneuver through millions, yes millions, of cards to find your exact card and folks are complaining like it is the end of the world that they have to pay $.25 per card for this service. Some days I just do not understand people.

It isn't the shipping by itself. In isolation those fees are fair. It is the totality of the fees in combination. It is a beating. Yes, they do the legwork but that is offset by how long most things take to sell in relation to Ebay.

__________________
I think the great philosopher, Ron White, said it best, "I had the right to remain silent but I did not have the ability".

It still comes down to supply and demand. When there are 256 cards of a Yu Darvish Bowman rookie card, and you have to go 4 or 5 pages deep to just get out of the cards that are not 5-6% of book...that is the problem. There are so many cards being submitted now, by many more sellers than there used to be. What does the guy have to do, to even move 56 of those? Sellers have to quit sending cards in when there are 250 copies on the site. In the same way, there were over 100 Xander base bowman rookies, and 50-60 Chromes, during the summer they got pushed down to about 20-25% of book and about 35% or so on the Chrome. I bought all I could. The demand for them came within the last 4-6 weeks, and I have sold well over 60-70 base and I am down to my last Chrome out of 50 or so. It comes back to simple econ 101...

I do think that the BV going away has hurt more than I think COMC thought it would. I talked to a friend of mine this weekend, who really enjoyed using COMC but wasn't a hardcore collector/didn't have time to devote a lot to it. The prices gave him a basic guide. Yes, we all know Beckett is outdated etc etc, but it did help in some situations. In his case, he didn't have that "guide" to go by anymore, so he sold his port and stopped using the site. I hope the casual buyer, isn't getting pushed off. Even myself, my buying has slowed down. I still purchase a lot more than the "normal" user, but I have cut back. I only bought one of the Becketts to have some pricing available, and I find that I don't buy the other sports as much.

When I noticed the drop-off, it was around April-May of this year. That is when I believe the BV went away, but I am not sure. It isn't all that either. Some is the fees, it is the volume of cards that have come in, and now a lot of undercutting with no "BV" to go by...many cards, and some halfway decent ones can be had for well under 10%. That didn't happen before, those were snatched up. I also think part of it is the hobby itself...last year was such a fantastic year in baseball and football with Trout, Harper, Machado, etc and Luck, RG3, Wilson, Kaep. There wasn't nearly the excitement this year, especially in FB. Also, I think the economy plays a part. This is disposable income that people have to spend...if someone is that much more strapped and can only allot a certain amount for it, this will be one of the things that might get cut, or drastically reduced, in someone's budget.

All in all, this is so much better for me vs Ebay as far as time and not having to worry about idiot buyers/scammers etc. With that said, I will say, I am still concerned about the sales numbers I have had the last few months...as to what I did this time last year and in 2011. This slide can't continue, as the Ebay bs might be something to put up with if we can't get back to what sales were like about a year ago.

When I noticed the drop-off, it was around April-May of this year. That is when I believe the BV went away, but I am not sure. It isn't all that either. Some is the fees, it is the volume of cards that have come in, and now a lot of undercutting with no "BV" to go by...many cards, and some halfway decent ones can be had for well under 10%. That didn't happen before, those were snatched up. I also think part of it is the hobby itself...last year was such a fantastic year in baseball and football with Trout, Harper, Machado, etc and Luck, RG3, Wilson, Kaep. There wasn't nearly the excitement this year, especially in FB. Also, I think the economy plays a part. This is disposable income that people have to spend...if someone is that much more strapped and can only allot a certain amount for it, this will be one of the things that might get cut, or drastically reduced, in someone's budget.

This was the Spring Cleaning Sale which is when my buying and selling fell off, too. Beckett BV happened in July.

The Spring Cleaning Sale came, a lot of sellers had sales. Sale is over but the prices never went back to where they were pre-sale.

I know for myself I like to buy as well, have purchased over 200 cards in the last couple months and 95% of it is football because that is what I have Beckett for. It is great to be able to see the deals and compare, especially on cards that only have 1 or 2 copies so you know if it is good value or not.

Thought i'd chime back in. Lot of interesting thoughts from everyone and suprised by the amount of feedback. I want to be clear that it was not my intent to make the thread a COMC rant. However, obviously some people have some strong thoughts on COMC, the market, changes, etc.

As for me I do love COMC and its basically the only place I buy my cards. I do think the changes have made me slow down my buying. I'm glad they started that shipping deal for buyers who ship 100 cards as i think they need to encourage loyalty for their buyers and sellers. Not sure what other changes could be made to improve it for everyone.

The book value was nice even if it was based on a fiction because you felt good buying a "$20.00" card for $1. They should use their own data, as others have stated, to create their own book value.

As far as the fees I hope they do not get higher as I do think that they deter buyers and also the sellers who have to decide if it is worth sending it cards. I hope they try to make it better to encourage more sellers to send in cards that are so much more available on ebay. That might mean figuring out a way to make it cheaper to submit but somehow prevent the site from being flooding with penny cards.

Anyway looking forward to following everyone's thoughts and seeing what the future brings for it.

There is some information available by clicking on a card price. You can click on a card to see how many are for sale, how many have sold, and the top sale price.

I would like to see more information available regarding card sales...a card may sell for $10 when it it hot, and then $2 a couple of months later. I think it would be better if they named the range of the sales. So when you click on the price, it shows "3 cards sold, $2.00-$10.00. Something like that anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phillyfan42

They should use their own data, as others have stated, to create their own book value.

As soon as I gave my COMC cheerleading speech I have been rewarded with less than $15 in sales this month. Less than $3 a day in sales per day for a 3,400 card $9,500 selling price port is crazy low and one of the worst droughts that I can ever recall in five years.

__________________Concentrating on my personal collection. Please drop me a PM if you have any of the following for sale: Topps Football 1959; 1961-1964, 1967; Philadelphia Football 1964-1967, Topps Baseball 1957-1968

As soon as I gave my COMC cheerleading speech I have been rewarded with less than $15 in sales this month. Less than $3 a day in sales per day for a 3,400 card $9,500 selling price port is crazy low and one of the worst droughts that I can ever recall in five years.

I am glad I bit my tongue (i was right on board with what you were saying) as i have $491 of sales thus far in november. May the COMC buying gods shine down upon you!

Last card I purchased was 9/19 and prior to that was a port on 8/12, then a few on 7/13, a couple in june, one in may, 2 in april, 4 in march, 1 in feb, and then a bunch last november for black friday sales.

I actually hardly ever look at anything to purchase as my 2013 history shows as compared to all the other years. I used to spend a ton of time browsing. Not so much anymore. Part was the change from checkoutmycards to comc, and then losing bv sure hurts (yes its just a guide which made things look cool). I also price match to ebay on purchases.

so far 7 cards sold in Nov. last year 89 (black friday promotion helped)
November 2011 65
November 2010 41
November 2009 299
November 2008 59

October 2013: 31 sold.
October 2012: 45 sold
October 2011: 40 sold
October 2010: 49 sold
October 2009: 63 sold
October 2008: 70 sold

2013 is going to be my worst so far (not including my partial 2008 year)

It is interesting for me to see how many people talk about the loss of BV. I just never used it. I cross reference everything whether buying or selling with Ebay completed sales. I never used the BV seriously when it was free and certainly would never pay the $30 per month for it.

My problems are pretty much just two areas. Fees are far too high and they don't do enough advertising to attract new buyers. The customer service isn't what it used to be but when it was epic to begin with even the slide leaves them far above average. I do think that where they used to listen and adjust what they were doing based on feedback that it seems like now they just do what they want regardless. That is not a winning formula.

Edit: Also not a fan of the new site. I can't put my finger on what it is but I liked the old site 100% better.

__________________
I think the great philosopher, Ron White, said it best, "I had the right to remain silent but I did not have the ability".

All I know is something happened in April/May of this year, and it hasn't come back yet to where it once was. It still is a great place...it just isn't the same right now.

Maybe it was the change to expanding it past just a card site? I really don't think that has added a lot to the site, personally. Most of us are card people, and that is what was SO amazing about checkoutmycards. Even the BV, it was a place to go and check out your cards and what they were worth and maybe pick up some cards to boot. Then maybe a person started selling some of those same cards, and got into it even more. I am not sure that happens as much now.

I do wonder if they had kept the checkoutmycards site, and then made a separate site for the collectibles, they wouldn't have had to tweak so much and add that .25 fee, etc. I don't know. I do hope that for this Black Friday there are some ads in Beckett, SCD or across the net, etc. Has anyone seen anything in Beckett at all yet?

I wish COMC would get their Comics section into shape. I realize that it's a card driven site but the comic market is gigantic. They've been talking about updating their search engine for months but we haven't heard anything about it yet. I'd like to see COMC advertise on comic sites to let them know that there's other sites out there besides ebay or mycomicshop to purchase back issues from. With the large scans that are provided, it should be an easy sell for a true comic collector. And since comics buyers are so grade conscious, there should be more information. A general grade of GD-FN is such a wide range. GD is 2.0 and FN is 6.0. In between that are 7 more grades and 1/2 grades. It can be the difference between a few dollars to thousands of dollars.
COMC, please update your search engine for comics.. It's been mentioned a few times in email exchanges and on your blogs but let us actually see a change. I have probably close to $80,000 worth of comics I want to send in but I've been reluctant because the demand isn't there.

I do wonder if they had kept the checkoutmycards site, and then made a separate site for the collectibles, they wouldn't have had to tweak so much and add that .25 fee, etc. I don't know. I do hope that for this Black Friday there are some ads in Beckett, SCD or across the net, etc. Has anyone seen anything in Beckett at all yet?

Well, hindsight is 20/20, but I do think it was a bad decision to jack the fees while transitioning from checkoutmycards to COMC, and then try to obfuscate the fee increase by merging the shipping fee into the card price. I imagine a lot of casual buyers didn't really understand what was going on, and just saw the listed prices go up a bunch. And nothing was going to change the fact that the total cost to move one card from a seller to a buyer had gone up to .50 (+ $3 flat shipping charge + storage fees + cashout 20%) when it was half that a few years ago.